Your Keeping
by rebecca-in-blue
Summary: She's a child with a history of abuse, and he's a total stranger to her, but somehow, they learn to be a family. Valjean and Cosette's first days and nights together.
1. Wash Away What's Past

_Introduction_: "Another story must **begin**!" Jean Valjean cries in the _Les Misérables_ musical, and one does when he dedicates himself to raising young Cosette. The 2012 film expands on this moment when the two of them begin a new life together, with Valjean realizing, "Something still unclear, something not yet here, has **begun**." This story is my own take on how Valjean and Cosette learned to be a family, the challenges they faced, and the joys they shared. It is unapologetically fluffy and sappy. I take a few liberties with Victor Hugo's novel, but nothing major.

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_This rain will wash away what's past..._

Cosette was fast asleep in Valjean's arms when he finally arrived at the Gorbeau House, the boarding house in Paris where he had rented a room for them. It was on a quieter street for the city, but even there, the noise of people walking, doors and window shutters closing, the _clip-clop_ of horses and carriages, roused Cosette. She raised her head and looked around the dark street, confused.

Valjean smiled at her and said softly, "It's all right, Cosette. I know you're tired, but we're almost home." He stroked her hair and gently guided her back down to rest on his shoulder. Her hair was stringy and dirty. He would give her a bath as soon as they got to their room.

"Almost home," Cosette repeated, her voice small and far-away, muffled against Monsieur's shoulder. It had been such a long, strange, confusing day. What sort of new home was Monsieur bringing her to? Would it be a nice place? She stroked her new doll's hair, as Monsieur had just done with hers, and wondered sleepily.

He carried her up the narrow stairs and unlocked the door at the top. Cosette brightened when she saw their room. It was no more than a large attic room, with a low, slanted ceiling and small, smudged windows, but when Valjean sat her down on the folding bed in one corner, Cosette gazed around her in wonder.

"What a fine room this is," she said softly, almost awestruck. "Is it all for us, Monsieur?"

Valjean grinned, and the expression felt strange on his face. When had he last smiled so hard? Had he ever? "It's all for us, Cosette — yours and Papa's." He had told her to call him _Papa_, but he supposed it would take her some time to remember.

He had already bought a bar of soap from the landlady for a few extra _sous_. Now he dragged the tin washtub out from under his bed and began filling it with kettle after kettle of warm water, heated over the tiny, pot-bellied stove against the wall. Cosette was sitting on her bed, so absorbed in admiring her new doll that she didn't even notice what Valjean was doing until he ordered gently, "Come, Cosette, and take your dress off. Papa's going to give to you a bath." He left the door open on the stove and positioned the tub in front of it; he didn't want Cosette to get cold.

_A bath_. Cosette had taken a bath once, long ago; she couldn't remember exactly when. She only remembered having to wash in Eponine's old bathwater, which was dirty and cold. She had no soap to clean herself, and only a small, damp towel to dry off as best she could. She shivered for a long time afterwards and hadn't taken a bath since. But this bath would be different. The water looked so clean and warm, and Monsieur was there, fetching a washcloth and rolling up his shirt sleeves. Cosette decided that it would be all right.

She set her doll down and slowly walked over to him, and Valjean considered, briefly, how strange, even frightening, this must seem to Cosette — a man she had only just met undressing and bathing her. But he couldn't bear to see her in that filthy, ragged dress for one more minute. And she didn't resist when he helped her unbutton it.

She put her hand on his arm as she stepped out of her dress, and Valjean looked her up and down, noticing how thin and dirty she was, with chillblains on her hands and feet, knobby knuckles and protruding collarbones, her arms and legs covered in grime. He had been expecting all of that, as much as he hated it, but he gasped when he saw the bruises. Cosette ducked her head, ashamed, and tucked her arms tight to her sides. But Valjean swallowed down the anger rising in chest, forced his voice to be even, and said softly, "It's all right, Cosette. Let Papa see."

She relaxed a tiny bit, and he delicately took her elbow and pulled her arm closer to the flickering lantern light. There were long, dark bruises wrapped around her upper arm in the pattern of a large hand. Madame Thénardier had grabbed her and flung her towards the inn door, shouting, "I _told_ you to go fetch the water!" one rainy evening when Cosette didn't mind her the first time she told her to go outside and fill the heavy pail.

There was another bruise across her lower back, from where Madame had struck her with the broom handle for missing some dust when she swept beneath the table. Then there was the scrape on her knee, a mess of dirt and dried blood, from where she'd slipped and fallen, hurrying up the stone steps with her arms full of firewood. The stout little logs had rolled away, and Cosette ran to and fro, gathering them back up, while her knee bled and Madame shouted that she was stupid and clumsy.

Cosette held very still, afraid, as Monsieur looked at each one. Would he ask her what had happened?

Finally, she raised her head and dared to look at him. Monsieur's eyes were burning, as if he were very angry, but he said in the same calm, light tone, "Come, Cosette, into the tub with you. Papa needs to clean that scrape on your knee. It may hurt a little, but it will heal faster if it's clean."

It did hurt; she winced, but didn't squirm or cry, when he cleaned the cut on her knee with his washcloth and ran a comb through her tangled hair until it was smooth and sleek. He gently scrubbed away the caked-on layers of dirt on her feet and neck, and he poured pitchers of warm water over her shoulders and back. That felt good. Cosette had spent so much time hauling water to the Thénardiers' inn, but no one had ever given her a bath before.

She looked almost like a different little girl by the time Valjean lifted her from the tub, pink and clean. He wrapped her up in a towel, and she swayed slightly on her feet, grinning a silly, sleepy smile. The warm water — and perhaps, Valjean hoped, the joy of being with him, the relief of knowing that she had nothing to fear anymore — had an intoxicating effect on her. Valjean smiled, his kind eyes crinkling, as he dried her off. It was a blessing that she trusted him so much, so soon, after the other adults in her life had obviously not been trustworthy.

"Are you warm enough?" he asked when she shivered a bit, dripping water on the floor in front of the fire.

Cosette didn't answer right away. She closed her eyes as Valjean wiped her face dry, but now she opened them and looked up at him shyly. Valjean had the strange sensation that he was suddenly falling from a great height — that he and Cosette both were, hand in hand, unafraid.

"Yes, Papa," she answered softly, curling her bare toes against the wooden floor. It was the first time she called him _Papa_, and the word tasted strange and delicious on her lips, like the first bite of some wonderful food that she'd been so long denied.

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_This will be a multi-chapter story. I've never written fanfiction for __Les Misérables_ before, so I'm kinda nervous. Please review and tell me how you liked it!


	2. Sleep in Your Embrace

I'm truly overwhelmed by the number of reviews and alerts that this story has received. I never expected such a positive response, and each review means so much to me. As I said before, this is my first time ever writing fanfiction for _Les Misérables_, so I had no idea, going in, what a kind of readers this fandom would have. But y'all have proven to be some of the kindest readers of any fandom I've written for! I so hope that you enjoy this new chapter.

Also, fair warning — this one is so syrupy that you could put a pancake in it! :)

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_And you will keep me safe, and you will keep me close_  
_I'll sleep in your embrace at last..._

Within a week, their dreary attic looked almost like a different room. The small, bright touches that Cosette brought to it added more warmth that Valjean could've imagined. One day Cosette plucked some flowers growing at the Pont d'Austerlitz at the end of their street, brought them home, and set them on the table, in a chipped pink cup full of water. When they withered and died, she was so sad that Valjean bought a bunch of paper flowers from a girl selling them on the street corner, and now those sat on their table always, lending their color to the plain room. So did Catherine, Cosette's doll, propped up against the pillows in her blue dress, her white muslin face always smiling. The windowpanes were still smudged and dirty, but Valjean cut curtains out of old bedsheet, and on sunny days, they looked quite lovely. Even the copper kettle seemed to shine more brightly and the fire in the stove to crackle more merrily than they did before Cosette arrived.

But the most beautiful addition to the attic room was Cosette herself. The brightest colors were her golden hair and sparkling, sky-blue eyes. They were so unlike Fantine's dark eyes and hair — her eyes had been huge and haunting in her thin face, and her hair chopped close to her scalp, the last time Valjean saw her, wasting away in the hospital bed — that one night as Cosette slept, he watched her breathe and wondered if she didn't take after her father.

But he pushed the thought out of his mind quickly, horrified and ashamed of himself. _He _was Cosette's father. She knew no name for him but _Papa_ — he had decided early on that Cosette would never know his real name, nor anything of his past — and as long as there was breath in his body, he would see to it that she called no other man on earth _Papa_, except him. He never tired of hearing Cosette call him that, no matter how often she did it. And she did it often. Already abandoned and forgotten too often in her young life, Cosette could become quite anxious if Valjean was out of her sight for even a few moments.

For as pleasant as their new life together was, there were unexpected bumps. Valjean was startled the first time Cosette disobeyed him. She'd been so sweetly obedient until then, but one evening, early on, as they ate dinner, he cut up her meat for her, and she ate a few bites and refused more. Even when Valjean firmly told her that she couldn't leave the table until she finished her plate, Cosette pressed her lips together and shook her head, tearful.

A pang of sadness spread in Valjean's chest when he finally realized that Cosette feared that if she finished her dinner tonight, there would be nothing left for her to eat tomorrow, and she would go hungry. She was used to being denied food, not to being fed three meals a day. She even cried in confusion and relief when Valjean assured her that there would be fresh bread and milk for breakfast in the morning, and she would never go hungry again. He calmed her down enough for her to finish dinner, but she was still so upset that as soon as she was done, he gave her a bath and tucked her into bed early.

She didn't stay asleep for long, though. That was another bump in the road for them.

It was frightening to Cosette how her dreams changed overnight. When she had lived with the Thénardiers, she'd had nothing to look forward to except her dreams. But now that she lived with her Papa, she had nothing to fear except her dreams. As if determined not to let her go, the Thénardiers loomed before her at night, larger in her mind than they had been in reality. Sometimes were not even proper people — only shouting voices, rough hands, and kicking feet that Cosette, cold and hungry and wearing her ragged old dress, could not escape no matter how far she ran.

During her first week in the attic, Cosette cried in her sleep every night. Valjean gave her a bath in the washtub and tucked her into bed every evening, but a few hours later, like clockwork, he would find her sobbing and flinching, sometimes twisting in the sheets to get away from Monsieur Thénardier's angry fists. And every night, Valjean lifted her gently into his lap, stroked her hair, and rocked her back and forth like a baby until she calmed down. At first, Cosette startled and shrank away from him, as if expecting to be hit, which made him want to cry along with her.

But he didn't. He wiped her tears away with his handkerchief and whispered, "Oh, my poor girl. Cosette, do you want to sleep with Papa in his bed?"

And each night, Cosette nodded, slowly and hesitantly, as if she couldn't believe that this strange new man who told her to call him Papa could be so kind to her and offer to share his bed with her.

And so Valjean scooped her up and carried her across the room to sleep in his bed.

After the first few week, the same scenario continued to play out every night, except that Cosette was now much quicker to accept Valjean's offer to sleep in his bed. "Yes, Papa," she would whisper back to him, as soon as he asked the question.

She felt safe lying beneath the warm blankets in his big bed, with her new papa on one side of her and the beautiful new doll he'd bought her on the other. But even then, she sometimes had trouble sleeping, afraid that when she closed her eyes, she would see the Thénardiers again, shouting at her, grabbing her by her arm or her hair when she wasn't quick enough to obey their orders. One night, she dremt that Monsieur Thénardier kicked her to the floor and knocked her down when she tried to get back up. When she called out for her papa, he snarled, "He's gone. You'll be sorry."

"Don't be afraid, Cosette," Valjean would whisper in her ear as she lay awake beside him, her eyes big and blinking in the darkness. "Papa is here, you're safe now." And he kissed her goodnight and stroked her hair and sang the old French lullaby, _Au Clair de la Lune_, softly to her until she fell sleep.

But he never asked her about her nightmares, or why she was so afraid. And Cosette slowly began to understand something very important about him — that he left the past in the past, and he never looked back. So Cosette never spoke a word about the things she saw in her nightmares, or of the abuses she had suffered at the inn. They all remained locked behind her lips.

It took time, but Valjean was as patient and kind as she needed, and eventually, Cosette began having nightmares less often. They didn't come every night, and when they did, they didn't upset her as much. She woke up afraid, but not crying, and she would creep out of bed and across the dark room by herself — it didn't frighten her anymore — to Valjean's bed. She climbed in beside him, and he stirred, half-awake, kissed her cheek, and wrapped an arm around her.

One night, as he laid his arm over her, the sleeve of his night-shirt slid up to his elbow, and in the moonlight, Cosette could see clearly the scars on his wrists. They were old and faded to a dull white, but they were still thick and encircled his wrists completely... as if he had worn something very heavy around them, for a very long time. Cosette traced the scars with her finger, a bit afraid. What had happened to her Papa's arms? Had he lived with mean inn-keepers too, when he was a child? Had they done this to him? Was that why he would never talk about their lives before?

Cosette was curious, but she never asked about his past — just as he never asked about hers. Her bruises faded, and during the day, Valjean always wore long sleeves with cufflinks fastened at the wrists. Even Cosette rarely saw his scarred arms again after that night. They were together now, both of them safe and happy and loved at last. And later in the morning, when dawn came shining through the curtains, Valjean awoke with her back nuzzled against his chest and her sweet head tucked beneath his chin.

It was bittersweet moment — he was proud and happy for her, yet almost sad and sorry for himself — the first time that Cosette slept through the night in her own bed.


	3. And He Has Found Me

I wish I had a way to respond to my anonymous reviewers personally, but I'll say it here instead — thank you! And to all my readers, your feedback makes me a better writer. There doesn't seem to be a lot of stories about Valjean and Cosette, so I'm very happy to writer this one. This chapter is a bit darker than my previous ones, but don't worry, there's still plenty of fluff, too.

And always remember — God loves ducks.

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___And when I lose my way, I close my eyes  
And he has found me_

Living with her Papa was like being reborn. Cosette was mesmerized by everything she saw in Paris. Even the everyday sights like the newsboys cutting the twine off their big bundles of newspapers every morning, or the sun setting over the rooftops every evening — it was as if she was seeing it all for the first time. And nearly everything that she saw, delighted her. She leaned against the stone railing of the Pont Neuf to gaze in wonder at the boats sailing by on the Seine below. She gasped aloud when she saw the blossoming flowerbeds in the Jardins des Tuileries and tried to smell every one of them. She pulled Valjean's hand and cried, "Look, Papa! Look at all the ducks!" as they strolled around the lake in the Bois de Boulogne. Nothing had ever given Valjean so much pleasure as watching her little face light up; it made his heart feel full enough to burst.

Once they stopped in front of the window of a crêpe shop, and Cosette watched, completely intrigued, as the baker poured and spread batter for one crêpe after another. She was such a quiet, observant child, and yet there was a strange depth to her blue eyes — a wise, old look that was quite unchildlike. Even when Valjean took her to church every Sunday morning, Cosette never grew bored and fidgeted in the hard wooden pews, like some children in the congregation. She was happy to listen to the singing, smell the incense, and look up at the sunlight pouring through the stained-glass windows. There had been so little beauty in her life that now she was soaking up as much of it as she could.

They never talked about the past, about the hard, lonely years before they had each other. Valjean never brought it up, and Cosette was afraid to. But as much as they tried to leave it behind them, the past, of course, still effected them. Painful memories would rear their ugly heads out of nowhere.

One pleasant Sunday morning, after church services, Valjean took Cosette to a _patisserie_ near the Gorbeau House, and he had to chuckle at how her jaw dropped when she saw the rows of sweets in the window display. "Pick one, Cosette," he said with a smile, "and Papa will buy it for you."

She looked carefully for a long moment, then finally pointed to a chocolate _petit four_ with powdered sugar sprinkled on top. Inside the shop, the air was warm and smelled delicious, and Valjean picked up Cosette so that she could see over the counter. The clerk asked kindly, "And what for you, chérie?" But Cosette shrank back and buried her face in his coat lapel. She was still so shy around strangers.

She ate it slowly, savoring each delicious bite, as she and Valjean walked hand-in-hand. Cosette had never tasted chocolate before — the Thénardiers had barely given her enough to eat at all, much less any sweet foods — and it was like heaven on her tongue.

They were walking home hand-in-hand, and Cosette had just finished her _petit four_, with the taste of chocolate still playing on her tongue, when she stopped abruptly. Valjean felt the pull on his hand, and then he saw her stricken face, her blue eyes wide and staring. Perplexed, he followed her gaze across the cobbled street, to where a little girl Cosette's age was sweeping the front steps of a building. She was humming and dancing with the broom a bit — she obviously enjoyed the chore — and Cosette just stared at her for a moment, gripping Valjean's hand tightly in her small one, and then she burst into confused tears. She didn't understand why she was crying, or why the sight effected her so strongly. After all, her life of sweeping and cleaning and fetching things and never-ending drudgery was over now. She had a wonderful new home with her Papa now. But she couldn't stop crying.

Valjean didn't ask her any questions. He had decided, almost immediately after finding her at the inn, that he would never ask Cosette any questions about her past. It was the best way. She was still young enough that he hoped she could forget it completely. But she still had a right to mourn over what she had been through. So he just picked her up and let her sob against his shoulder, all the way back to the Gorbeau House. "It's all right, Cosette, it's all right now," he said over and over, stroking her hair. "Papa's here now," over and over, until she cried herself out. He didn't mind when she wiped her teary eyes and runny nose on the front of his coat. He kissed the crown of her head, then her brow, her cheeks and nose; he peppered her face with kisses, as if every kiss could erase another unhappy memory.

After her bath that evening, Valjean skipped putting Cosette in her own bed entirely. It would be better to have her close if she woke up crying — and she almost certainly would; she was still shaky from crying so hard — and so he tucked her into his bed straight away and sang _La Petite Poule Blanche_ to her until she fell asleep. As he watched her sleep, Valjean wondered, briefly, if it might not be good for Cosette to talk about her life with the Thénardiers... but he pushed the idea aside quickly. _What is past is gone._

Another afternoon, they took a wrong turn as they strolled through the city after church, and rather than returning to the Gorbeau House, they got lost and ended up at the docks on the Seine, in a poor, gritty stretch of the river.

Paris, of course, was a much larger city, but the docks over the Seine were nearly identical to the docks on the Canche river, back in Montreuil-sur-Mer. There was the same stinking smell of sewage, the same filthy muck on the pavement — Valjean heard it squealch beneath his boots as he walked. Here, too, even in the daytime, there were a few prostitutes, in garish dresses and heavy makeup. They hung back against the warehouses overlooking the docks and didn't try to sell themselves to Valjean. They saw that he had a little girl with him.

The whole scene was so much like the docks in Montreuil-sur-Mer, where he had found Fantine and kept Javert from arresting her on that bitterly cold night, that Valjean half-expected Fantine's ghost to appear. He felt a cold sweat on the back of his neck and shivered, despite the warm spring day. In his mind's eye, he could see Fantine again — her hungry, wasted body in that tattered red dress, her huge, desperate dark eyes, her accusing finger pointing at him, the hatred in her voice. _You let your foreman send me away! You were there and turned aside!_

The guilt over her death clawed at Valjean again, like a knife inside him. It was so sharp, so palpable, that he nearly gasped aloud from the pain of it. But he didn't. He didn't want to frighten Cosette. He glanced down at her. She wasn't frightened; far from it, the bright colors of the prostitutes' dresses and makeup had drawn her childish fancy, and she was gazing at them, admiring. There was still so much that she didn't understand.

"Come, Cosette," he said quickly, taking her hand and pulling in the opposite direction. "I've got some breadcrumbs in my pocket, and I think I know of a family of ducks who live up the river this way."

Cosette's face lit up. She loved to feed bread to the ducks; the lake in the Bois de Boulogne was her favorite part of the city for that reason. To sweeten the deal, as they turned away from the prostitutes and the harsh living they made on the docks, to make sure her mind didn't dwell on what she had just seen, Valjean scooped her up and sat her on his shoulders. Cosette gave a little squeal of delight. She was in heaven itself when her papa let her ride on his shoulders.

They found ducks in a sunnier, pleasanter stretch of the Seine. As he watched Cosette toss them bits of bread, Valjean realized that she wasn't scared when they were lost; in fact, she hadn't even noticed. She now trusted him so completely that as long as they were together, she felt safe; she knew that he would never let anything happen to her. Her trust was like a balm on the guilt that he still felt over her mother's death.

That night, after he gave Cosette a bath and tucked her in, he stood beside her bed for a long time, watching her sleep. He could never tell Cosette about her mother, or the sad fate that had befallen her, or the role that he himself had played in it. He couldn't. It would only hurt them both to talk about the past. If Cosette ever knew how he had turned away and let Fantine get fired from her job, and how that had driven her to sell her hair and her teeth and eventually, her body... she would surely hate him for it. Valjean couldn't even bear to imagine it.

Cosette was going to get older, of course, and one day, she would have questions — questions about his past, and about her mother — and she would look to him for answers. But he could never tell her.

He watched her sleeping, her face still and peaceful in the moonlight; she didn't wake up crying from those horrible nightmares anymore. Valjean thanked God for that. It had been so hard on him too, when she used to have those dreams. He became so angry that it frightened him, and he fantasized about walking all the way back to Montfermeil and shooting the Thénardiers dead in their sleep, for what they had put his daughter through. In all his life, he had never felt such anger, not even for Javert.

Cosette was fast asleep with one arm tucked beneath her pillow, and the other wrapped around Catherine, her doll. She was so young and innocent, so trusting, so delighted by the simplest things. Valjean would give anything, if only he could keep her like that forever.


	4. You Grow Ever Older

I think this chapter is rather different from the previous ones, but at the same time, I also tried to make it a reprise of the first chapter, with the shared elements of a new home and washing away what's happened.

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___Come to me, and rest against my shoulder  
How fast the minutes fly away, and you grow ever older_

By the time Cosette was a young lady, she and Valjean had settled into their new home on the Rue Plumet. It was a handsome house, but Valjean, as always, lived quite modestly. He did consider hiring a housekeeper, but Cosette persuaded him from it. She saw their new home as one great game of playing house. She liked to cook and sew for her papa, and she was learning to grow flowers in the garden, from a book on a botany that Valjean bought for her. The house had a large front garden, surrounded by a tall, wrought-iron fence separating it from the Rue Plumet. That was one reason why Valjean had chosen the house – its secluded location and heavy front gate that locked. He was still a convict, and he could never afford to let his guard down.

He was always vigilant, but he never allowed that to dampen his spirits. He and Cosette were perfectly happy on the Rue Plumet – happy with their simple, ordinary lives, with having their own home at last, and most of all, with each other. Every evening, after Valjean chopped the firewood, Cosette read aloud to him. And every night, he asked God for nothing – except, one more day.

Their lives together were so pleasant than Valjean was caught completely off-guard when early one morning, before sunrise, he awoke to the sound of Cosette crying in her bedroom down the hall. As he sprang out of his bed, his heart sprang up in his chest, with that old, familiar fear tightening around it like a vise. _It's Javert._ Suppose the police officer who had dogged his footsteps for so long had found his cover at last. Suppose he had realized that the best way to hurt Valjean was through Cosette. Suppose —

_Stop it_, Valjean scolded himself as he hurried down the hall. Javert was after him, not Cosette. He wasn't an amoral person like the Thénardiers, but an officer of the law. Despite their differences, Valjean knew that Javert would never take his grudge against him out on an innocent girl like Cosette. Even if Javert did find him again one day, his daughter would be safe. That gave him some sense of comfort, and by the time he reached Cosette's room and pushed open the door, his heartbeat was back to normal.

Cosette's bedroom looked perfectly lovely and peaceful with the first rays of sunlight peeking in through the curtains. Nothing was amiss, but Cosette was awake and sitting up in bed, sobbing hard. Valjean supposed that he must've had a nightmare, but it puzzled him. She hadn't woken up crying from a nightmare for years, not since she was a little girl.

_Years_. He froze in the doorway to Cosette's room for second, suddenly feeling like a very old man. Had it already been _years_ since his Cosette was a tiny girl who couldn't sleep through the night without him? Was that possible? But it was. Of course it was. It had already been over five years since Valjean had saved Cosette from her hellish life at the Thénardiers's inn. His little girl had turned twelve just three months ago, and he had given her the silver cross necklace that she always wore. Dear Lord, where had the time gone?

"Cosette?" he asked, alarmed. "Darling, what's the matter?" But she said nothing and continued to cry, turning away from him, towards the wall. Valjean felt a cold fear run through him. Cosette had never done such a thing before — turn away when she so obviously needed him. He would not let her start now. He gingerly sat down beside her on the bed and wrapped his arms around her.

"Cosette, look at me," he said firmly. "Cosette, tell Papa what's wrong."

She kept crying and looking at the wall, unable to face him, but she gave him an answer. With one hand, she grabbed the bedclothes and flung them off. Valjean glanced once down the length of the bed, and his heart skipped a beat before he understood. Cosette's nightgown was white, which made it easy to see the dark red bloodstains. The blood was in splotches on her sheets, in messy streaks down the bottom half of her nightgown, making the material stick to her thighs. Valjean quickly looked away. Cosette was still facing the wall, embarrassed, but fear drove her back to her papa. She buried her flushed, tear-streaked face in the front of his dressing gown, her shoulders hitching.

"Papa, why is there so much blood?" she choked out between her sobs. "Am I dying?"

Valjean just held her tightly for a moment, stroking her hair, as he prayed for guidance on what to do, what to tell her. His first thought was that he should have hired a maid, after all. It would be so much simpler if there was a woman in the house to tell Cosette about... becoming a woman. But wishful thinking would get him nowhere. There was no one else, only him, and he had promised Fantine, as she lay dying, that he would always be there for her daughter. _Your child will want for nothing._ No, he couldn't possibly fail her now, when she was so afraid.

So he kissed the crown of her head and said in his most soothing voice, "It's all right, Cosette. I know you're frightened, but you're not dying. You're... you're..." Valjean paused and fumbled for words to explain what was happening to her body. He found none. "...not dying," he repeated. Perhaps he had been foolish to assume that the nuns at the convent school had taught her about this.

He sighed into Cosette's golden hair, frustrated that he did not have a better answer for her, but he had never known much about this peculiarity of women's bodies, and explaining it to his daughter felt like a very daunting task. It drove home the fact that she was growing up at such an alarming rate. But Cosette seemed comforted by his lacking answer, by his arms around her, by his mere presence. Her shoulders sagged, and her sobs were tapering off. Valjean grabbed a wet cloth from the basin on the wash-stand beside her bed and gently wiped her face. Yes, the best thing to do would be to clean her up now and explain later, after she'd calmed down and he'd had more time to think. For now, he couldn't let Cosette keep sitting there in her own blood.

He kissed her cheek and stood up. "Come, Cosette, it's all right," he said gently. "Now, why don't you fetch a clean change of clothes while I draw a bath for you? It'll make you feel better, and we can talk more about this afterwards." Cosette nodded and crossed the room to her wardrobe, her face still warm from fear and embarrassment, while Valjean went down the hall to bathroom. Their new home had a real bathtub with a water-pump directly over it. Neither one of them had ever lived with such a luxury before. But the pump's long iron handle was too heavy for Cosette to work, so Valjean always drew her baths for her. Now, as he pumped the water, he thought very seriously about hiring a maid soon.

Valjean changed the bloody sheets on Cosette's bed while she took her bath. He tried to rehearse what he should say to her, but instead, his mind kept wandering to days gone by. He racked his brain, trying to remember — when was the last time he'd given Cosette her evening bath? It had to have been at least four years ago. When was the last time he'd carried Cosette on his shoulders as he walked down the street? When did she last climb into his bed after a scary dream?

He couldn't even remember. He hadn't known, then, that it would be the last time. He hadn't known, then, that Cosette would would grow up so quickly. Had he known, he would've walked with her on his shoulders a little slower. He would've held her a little longer._  
_

**FIN**

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Yes, this chapter is also the last one. As sad as I am to end this story, this is as far as my muse took me, and I feel like the story is complete. _Merci beaucoup_ to everyone who's left comments! I will definitely be writing _Les Misérables_ fanfiction again, so if you have any fluffy Valjean/Cosette plot-bunnies that you'd like to share, please send them hopping my way! Thanks again!**  
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